Baseball owners pick league exec as new commissioner

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Rob Manfred. (Photo: Patrick McDermott/Getty Images)

(CNN) — After 22 years with Bud Selig in charge, Major League Baseball didn’t look far for his replacement — tapping Selig’s right-hand man and fellow longtime league executive Rob Manfred as its next commissioner.

Owners of the 30 Major League teams elected Manfred during their quarterly meetings Thursday in Baltimore, the league announced on Twitter. That means he got at least 23 of 30 votes to win the job.

Manfred spent 15 years as MLB’s executive vice president of labor relations, during which time he represented the league in reaching collective bargaining agreements with players in 2002, 2006 and 2011 — without any work stoppages, as happened several times in the 1980s and 1990s.

In September 2013, the lawyer by training became the league’s chief operating officer overseeing “all of the traditional functions of the commissioner’s office, including labor relations, baseball operations, finance, administration and club governance,” according to his official bio.

Manfred reported directly to the man he is now succeeding, Allan “Bud” Selig.

A former car salesman and owner of the Milwaukee Brewers, Selig ascended to the commissioner’s job in 1992 following the death of Fran Vincent and remained there through his official election to the post six years later.

Selig, 80, announced last fall that he’d retire as commissioner, effective this coming January.